


The Shattered Isle

by Ariibees



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Basically written as a standalone book, Doesn't touch with canon much, F/M, M/M, Will include slight Poison Jungle spoilers down the road!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 15:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariibees/pseuds/Ariibees
Summary: (Getting a total rewrite/rework soon!)A NightWing dragonet named Lucky has spent the first six years of his life training for this moment: the night they are to attack the rainforest and claim their new, rightful home. When their plans begin to fail and the volcano erupts, Lucky flees the island and is caught in the smoke and ash and waking up the next day on the shores of a strange archipelago known as Peroptha and populated by strange dragons who call themselves the TepuiWings. NightWings are taught from birth to fake the powers they claim to hold, and Lucky manages to convince them of his usefulness as a prophecy-writer -- that is, until he finds himself trapped in a false prophecy of his own design and realizes that





	The Shattered Isle

> **The Shattered Isle Prophecy**
> 
> _ A story told, long since passed down, _
> 
> _ A tale once whispered where tails abound, _
> 
> _ Of islands hidden from fear and desire, _
> 
> _ Due south and east from the ruins of fire, _
> 
> _ Where past smoke and steam and ocean blue, _
> 
> _ A shattered land shall come to view. _
> 
> _ Two sides abound, two halves a whole, _
> 
> _ A world thought perfect to ease the soul. _
> 
> _ Trapped so long, forgotten, and lost, _
> 
> _ A kingdom shall drown, or fight, accost. _
> 
> _ A patchwork wing, a fractured coast, _
> 
> _ The sickly flying from pillar to post, _
> 
> _ The weak long await, _
> 
> _ The strong are defined, _
> 
> _ And soon see the fates of the left behind._

* * *

Kauri scratched another sentence onto the page. The ink was slow to dry, and when he swept his talons over the paper to begin the next, he didn’t quite lift his claws enough -- his words smudged, dragging along the line. Sighing, he was forced to face his own rapidly-growing state of exhaustion, and he wiped his claws clean on the small woven mat kept beside his writing desk. It didn’t seem that he was in much of any state to continue his work tonight, and he would be called down for breakfast at the first light of dawn (a time far too early, in his opinion). With a soft huff of air, he extinguished the candle on his desk, knowing that even if he had been fit to continue his work, mother wouldn’t be very pleased if she knew he were up all night filing papers. Beeswax candles were a limited commodity, and she certainly considered burning them all night long a waste of resources.

Bundling his paper into a loose scroll, he tucked it under one arm and headed to the door. He’d learned that it was far easier to return whatever records he was working with to the archives room before heading to sleep, rather than dealing with them come dawn. 

Without the light from his candle, the room was cast into a silver-toned darkness, illuminated by the faint glow from his window. Stepping out into the hallway, that gentle light was replaced by a pure milky shine from the narrow gaps in the stone above. They were too small for a dragon to fit through, but allowed enough light in that a dragon could see their path, even if they hadn’t been blessed with night vision. As he padded towards the tunnel’s exit, he kept his steps soft, unwilling to make more noise than necessary. Nights here in the Apiary always had a certain stillness to them, an oppressive weight that settled over anyone who dared to remain awake as if to ask, “Why must you make so much noise?”

As he came up to the Interior Chamber, the walls abruptly dropped away to the sides, revealing a sharp descent to the oval-shaped ground level several stories below. The stone was worn smooth from the thousands of dragons who had passed through before, the only feature to mar the floor being a small pool at the base of one wall, collecting the spray from a thin waterfall. It sourced from above, the open-aired chamber twisting further upwards to form a dome similarly covered in skylights, although here they were just larger than an adult -- and during the day, they would be clogged with dragons coming and going from the Apiary like bees returning to their hive.

Tonight, however, they were barren.

At least, they should have been -- and when one blinked dark for a moment and a dragon with wings sparkling white and bluish-silver in the moonlight flew through, Kauri instinctively ducked back into the passageway to hide his presence. As dark as it was, the room washed strange colors in the faint light, he couldn’t quite make out who had flown in, but really, the specifics didn’t matter. No one should be out so late into the night; most castle staff would be asleep, and those such as Kauri who were working far into the evening would have already been inside the Apiary, rather than approaching from above.

With a flick of their tail, the dragon spiraled downwards and dove into one of the smaller tunnels.

Kauri wracked his brain, trying to remember where that particular tunnel went. It was hardly ever in use, mostly as...storage? For old census records and crop growth estimates, things only unearthed by historians or a particularly dedicated storyteller once in a blue moon. Gingerly, he set his scroll aside, spread his wings, and dove after them.

If there had been any doubt in his mind before that they were up to no good, this erased it.

Careful to keep a set distance between himself and the strange dragon, he darted into the tunnel and began to slip through the thin space, stone closing in around him. As they travelled deeper into the Apiary’s outermost reaches, the walls seemed to warp and twist. Here and there, the curling tunnel would brush the outside, a skylight bathing the hall in white for only a moment before he passed it by. Finally, when the cavern walls hugged him so tight that he could hardly bear to flap once more, he dropped to the floor, talons clicking against the rock.

Where had they gone…?

Something hollow hit the floor and bounced once. Kauri pricked up his ears, listening, before crouching low and creeping towards a thin gap in the wall. Squeezing through, he shuddered as his pebbly scales caught and scraped the stone, but when he emerged through to the other side, he had to blink as his eyes failed to adjust to the darkness.

The room was covered in a thick layer of dust that left Kauri fighting the urge to sneeze. Unlike the passage he had just flown through, this room widened outwards, the walls covered by hanging shelves that buckled under the weight of leaflets and piles of scrolls. As thin as the entrance was, the only light came from a narrow window sliced into the wall, a woven mat covering all but the edges of the opening. Couldn’t risk the scrolls being damaged by rain, after all, and candles were strictly forbidden in the storage rooms. A single scroll could be replaced, but never a library.

The floor was covered in baskets and pots. Some were clay, large enough to swim in, while others were smaller and woven from grass. Each was filled to the brim with bundles of maps and tablets, leaving their silhouettes odd-shaped and unrecognizable.

Almost unrecognizable enough to hide the dragon digging through the shelves, a few scrolls already knocked aside -- thus explaining the noise. The room was disorganized and left in chaos; finding exactly what you were looking for on the first try would be impossible...giving Kauri all the time he needed to make his presence known.

Rising to his full height, he cleared his throat, baring his teeth. “As _ Prince _ of this land, I demand you identify yourself!” 

The intruder yelped, nearly tripping over the mess on the floor, finally catching themselves against one of the shelves. Their voice almost sickly and dripping with forced generosity, they sneered, “Oh, your highness. What a pleasure to see you here, even if...I can’t quite make out your face.”

He didn’t recognize their -- _ her _ \-- voice. She wasn’t among the castle staff, or surely he would have known her by now. “Who are you? And-” his voice dropped into a snarl, “What are you doing here?” He should have sounded the alarm, found a guard to accompany him. She was larger, likely older.

She backed away, talons scratching against the shelf, slowly curling around a clay tablet. “I could be asking you the same question -- but, really...” With a hiss, she threw the tabet, Kauri yelping and dodging aside as it crashed into the wall behind him.

“Gah-!” Hooked claws outstretched, he leapt. He couldn’t see her exactly, but hopefully if he could land a hit-

Sharp talons dragged over his snout and he swiped back, claws connecting with a nearby basket instead and sending it flying. His attacker used the opportunity to return the gesture, but this time, it hit -- their claws didn’t scratch his scales, but they did manage to throw him aside.

The back of his head slammed into one of the lower-hanging shelves, papers floating to the floor. He groaned, a spike of pain hitting him through the rush of their fight. The scene around him was blurring, swimming; the other dragon ran to pin him down. Jerking his head to keep them from gagging him, he snapped, “You haven’t been quiet; mother and the guards will-”

“Sadly, the Queen has been kept late this night by her council,” they replied, talons moving to his throat. “A shame, really. You won’t be found for a long, long time.”

Their words felt like a frozen spear to the spine, and he shuddered, squirming in their grasp. “If you kill me-”

“Oh, no,” she mockingly reassured him. “You may have a part to play just yet. But if you do, that day is a long time away.”

She threw her head back and roared, claws glinting in the moonlight. Then, she brought them down on one of his wings, talons ripping through the translucent membranes. He cried out in pain, the ache in his head and snout and wings melding together and drowning out his vision.

Pyrrhia was known as the land of the distant kingdoms, where war had torn their people apart. Pantala was the unknown world of the lost continent, where dragons were poisoned and enslaved.

And Peroptha was the shattered isle, where in the Queen’s Apiary, home to the royals and their staff, a thief fled with a slender scroll clamped between her teeth.

* * *

The Volcanic Island of the Nightwings was in chaos. Oh, on the surface, all was well -- the fortress was silent and the beaches abandoned. But, gathered within the central hall, the island buzzed with the discussion of war. For years, every dragon had been counting the days before the war was finished and they would finally storm the rainforest. There would be enough food for everyone, clean water, and fresh air.

They could have never guessed that tonight would be it. Tonight, where every NightWing from the oldest adult to the youngest dragonet would fly through the rainforest, taking their new home by force.

Well, that had been the plan, at least.

“I should have expected that that traitor would change sides at the smallest sign of trouble,” his mentor -- an older NightWing named Acuity -- spat, tail lashing against her back legs. “All it took was one conversation with the enemy, and Deathbringer has been locked in the dungeons to rot.”

Lucky Star ducked his head, gulping. Deathbringer was one of the greatest assassins their island had ever seen, and without him, their unit could only collapse. Their orders from Princess Greatness had left no room for question -- first, a group of guards would storm the tunnel, distracting any RainWings nearby. In the chaos between then and the first wave of soldiers, it was up to those trained in stealth to slip through: Deathbringer, the assassin; Acuity, the espionage artist; and Lucky, the...distraction and secretary. First, Deathbringer would remove any true leadership from power. Acuity would take note of their enemy’s movements, areas of safe houses or supplies. Finally, Lucky would write everything down and fly for his life, hoping beyond all else that he would make it back alive. Ideally, he’d make it out in the nick of time; after all, what did he have on his side besides dumb luck and a wish to survive?

NightWing dragonets received their names young, when it was decided what profession they were best suited to. Along with their normal classes like science and literature, dragonets trained until they were ten -- well beyond the normal age of adulthood in the other tribes -- to perfect their unique skills for their career. In Lucky Star’s case, that was the ability to go unnoticed, cling to a goal, and wiggle his way out of any scenario that came up. But, at only six (and three days) he was hit with the profound realization that he was not ready. Nope, na-dah, not in the slightest.

Faintly, he could hear the cheering and hissing of the other dragons gathered in the Central Hall. Did any of them feel the same anxiety he felt, knowing that they would soon be flying into the unknown? “Acuity, I…”

“I’m just happy we’ll have you here. I don’t think we’d succeed if we had _ another _ screw-up,” she spat, resuming her frenzied pacing. The small hallway leading to the Central Hall echoed with the click-clack of her talons and the scrape of her scales on stone, her neck hunched and shoulders tensed. Of all things, that certainly didn’t help put him at ease, and he opened his mouth to proclaim just that. His track record wasn’t the most impressive; he had always been the sort of dragon to sit in the back of the class and never take a leadership role in projects. To have so much relying on him, well, surely there was a better dragon who was up for the task, one that-

Before he could utter a single word, the volcano erupted.

It didn’t take long for order to come crumbling down around them.

Soon, the air was filled with dragons. NightWings, deep black and silver, some shimmering with the undertones of a hundred other hues and others monochromatic and seemingly carved from the stone itself took flight. Someone cried out, claiming that they had to escape to the beaches, that the hall was filling with smoke. Another shouted for attention, pointing towards a group of RainWings commanding them to evacuate the fortress. Their guards were nowhere to be found, and when the volcano quaked beneath their talons, the fortress came down with it -- someone cried out in pain as one of the wide cups holding burning coals to light their home fell to the ground, burning-hot stones spewing across the dragons nearby.

Lucky coughed, throwing his talons out before him, trying to find his way in the smoke. He had lived here all his life, but in the chaos, he was lost, stumbling from place to place. There was no escape, nowhere to run or to hide. The floor burned his scales, although whether it was from the lava exploding to the surface or from the coals and torches knocked from the walls, he couldn’t say.

Talons wrapped around his wrist and Acuity was there, yanking him forwards. “Acuity, what’s going on!?”

“The RainWings must have known we were coming! They attacked us first, knocked down our defenses, and to top it all off, looks like the fortress is coming down on top of us!”

The Island had never been a good place to live. It was surrounded on all sides but the one nearest Pyrrhia by near-endless ocean, always filled with smoke and ash, lacking food and water. Lucky had experienced hardship living with the other dragonets, starving and hungry, but he had never truly feared for his life.

Based on the current situation, he would rather have never felt this way.

Acuity’s dark scales melded into their surroundings, but the small embers floating through the air cut her form from the smoke and stone. Lucky rushed after her, trying to keep up, when the island rumbled once more and his legs buckled beneath him.

“Get. Up. We’re all out of time, Lucky!”

He was pushed to his feet, and then into the sky, desperately flapping to stay aloft. Was the sheer slope beneath him coming alive from invisible RainWings and fleeing NightWings, or were his eyes deceiving him? Acuity dove downwards, towards the beach, but Lucky couldn’t make out where the land ended and the sea began, everything covered in a fine layer of ash.

A burst of heat accompanied the sudden spray of red and orange lava, bubbling up beneath him, and Lucky was caught by the draft. Talons scrabbling for purchase to land, he was swept skywards, air billowing under his wings.

“Lucky!” Acuity was on the beach, rushing to save him, but two other NightWings yanked her back -- narrowly escaping a burst of magma spewing from the mountainside.

His mentor was out of reach, and when the sudden wind threw him off balance, he could do nothing but watch as his head spun and he was thrown into the black smoke once more.

For a moment, he thought that he could see the sky, the stars glittering among it and the faint red of the rapidly disappearing light staining the darkness. Perhaps it was only silver ash on black rock and red fire, or perhaps it really was the sunset.

In either case, it was a fantastic view. The breeze billowed beneath his wings and he was left almost weightless against the dark canvas, caution thrown to the wind and no way to tell where he was headed.

An instant later, he blacked out, only vaguely registering as he dove into the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> Join me over on the Wings of Fire amino! I go by the same username, Ariibees.


End file.
